Raising kids when you're not a parent
Winther is holding this month's IndieWeb Carnival on Parenting. So, as I do when I get the slightest chance, I'm going to talk about my niblings!
The fact I don't have kids isn't really a big part of my personality. I don't think very much about it, or any 'decision' which I put in quotes because I don't think it's ever really a single decision but an ongoing series. That's just me, I know it's not the case for many people.
Despite my complete indifference to being a parent I am very interested in parenting. I have read several books. I think about it. A lot. Raising kids. Being part of the village. I'm not a parent but my sister regularly points out: I'm raising her kids.
As an aunt I am unshackled from the quotidian demands of parenting. Aunts and uncles, especially those without their own kids, can fill a whole other role. Parents have to keep the machine of the world going. They have to do laundry. They have to make kids brush their teeth. I do not have to do laundry. But I do make them brush their teeth.
Sometimes I do need to cook for them and sweep the floor. People say having niblings is great because you can give them back when they start to cry. I'm like, "To whom?" My siblings vanish when I walk into a room. They are off to do the machinery of the world.
We do joke though about gifting my sister and her husband a weekend away. So we can look after the kids. She barely goes away. She likes being with her children, or something. Very inconvenient when The Aunties want to have a sleepover.
Parents have to have different systems and boundaries. Parents have rules about interrupting when adults are talking - they have to because they need to have those conversations - and I do not because in that moment nothing is more important to me than that child.
When my sister had her first baby, when we were a hundred miles away from anyone else in the family, when I brought her breakfast every day for three months, one of her friends said wouldn't it be nice if her sister (ie, me) had a baby at the same time. No, my sister replied, horrified. She said she would have crumbled. Which might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.
It's just a weird coincidence I suppose that not only are my niblings the greatest kids ever, but my sister is the greatest mum I know, and my brother is the greatest dad. Funny that.
I spend a lot of time with both my sister and brother talking about how they parent, how to raise these children, what they need, and how to give it to them. Also how I can support them in their parenting. My wife and I spend an equal amount of time talking about raising these children, what we can give them, how best to do that, what they need. Trying to be better all the time.
One advantage I see is my sort of detachment. My sister has three kids: my mother also has three kids, my sister's mother-in-law has four kids. And they were doing it in the eighties. You can imagine it might sometimes feel difficult to ask for help or not feel ever so slightly judged. I, on the other hand, think my sister is amazing. I have nothing but awe.
We need non-parents to help raise kids. Family members and family friends. For the parents and the kids.